Public companies in the S&P 500 are buying up more shares than any institutional investor, helping set 12 record stock-market highs this year, according to Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at S&P Capital IQ. Photo: Reuters

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Manufacturing is back with a vengeance, producing sugar highs on Wall Street.

Corporate America is the stock market’s biggest customer this year, relentlessly buying back its own shares — and it’s propelling both the Dow and CEO compensations to new records.

That’s filling the gap as stock market volume plummets — by about 15 percent in May compared with April, and 19.5 percent lower than the five-year average.

Unfortunately for Americans used to pay squeezes and frugal times, this buying pressure could come with a high price very soon, critics say.

Apple, IBM, Exxon and Goldman Sachs are just some of the boldfaced public companies that have spent close to $160 billion in the first quarter alone — a tactic that juices their widely watched earnings per share (EPS). If the trend continues, the first half of 2014 will be remembered for the largest buyback program in history.

The tactic, also done to blunt the impact of activist investors, has some analysts rolling their eyes. They say buybacks send executive comp into the stratosphere. And they add that the frenzy could presage trouble once the punch bowl is removed.

Sean Egan, principal of Egan-Jones Ratings, has never seen anything like the latest buybacks in his long career on Wall Street. “You could certainly paint this in a nefarious light,” he said.

These public companies in the S&P 500, flush with cash, are buying up more shares than any single institutional investor, helping set 12 record stock-market highs this year, according to Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at S&P Capital IQ.

Companies around the globe were holding a massive $7 trillion in cash this year. The buybacks, meanwhile, dilute the percentage of shares outstanding held by activists as rising stock prices force companies to cover executive options that “come into the money.” In other words, it’s a big payday for corporate execs.

But analysts think corporate America may be having too much of a good time.

“The buybacks have helped their first quarter EPS — which nobody expected to be that good anyway — so they bought themselves a tail wind,” Silverblatt told The Post.

“This is a continuation of what happened over the last four quarters, and whether companies needed this big burst of buying in the latest quarter to help their [financials], they are never going to say. Dividends have been increasing, but they are still stingy.”

CEO comp is anything but stingy. With their rewards often largely tied to the company’s stock performance, many CEOs benefit handsomely as the market surges on the heels of expensive buyback programs.

A report last week by Equilar notes that 44 of the top 50 CEOs made more last year than in 2012, a 21.7 percent jump in median pay, thanks largely to a rising stock market. Two from the corner office saw their comp surge a whopping 400 percent; another surpassed 500 percent. The highest-paid CEO, Anthony Petrello of Nabors Industries, pulled in $68.2 million. CEOs earned 202.3 times more than the typical US worker in 2012, compared with 26.5 times in 1978, according to an Economic Policy Institute study.